ACTS OF KINDNESS AROUND THE WORLD

Sometimes, when news is everything but positive, it is hard to remember how small acts of kindness make us feel more human.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread rapidly around the world, reaching at least 172 countries. But as one-third of the world has been put under lockdown, the global community has come together to spread love and kindness through volunteer work, music, and inspirational videos. It’s nice to remind ourselves that there are truly kind and generous companies, institutions and people out there willing to make a difference, stepping out of their way to help their fellow man without asking anything in return.

Read below how companies, celebrities and individuals show kindness in different countries around the world.

 

UNESCO supports culture and heritage during COVID-19 shutdown

UNESCO is launching initiatives to support cultural industries and cultural heritage as billions of people around the world turn to culture for comfort and to overcome social isolation during the COVID-19 sanitary crisis, which is hitting the culture sector hard.

 

UNESCO is also launching an online exhibition of dozens of heritage properties across the globe with technical support from Google Arts & Culture.

 

SNF $100 Million Global Relief Initiative

Responding to the severe and unprecedented challenges posed around the globe by the disease, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) in Greece, has announced a major initiative which aims to help address the impacts of the pandemic. This initiative, rooted in SNF’s philanthropic philosophy of public-private collaboration and working closely with grantee partners around the world, will focus both immediately and in the long term on some of the most pressing issues related to the pandemic.

 

Andrea Bocelli’s ‘Music for Hope’ online concert from Milan’s Duomo cathedral

Andrea Bocelli performed a special online concert from the Duomo cathedral in Milan this Easter Sunday (12 April 2020).

Entitled “Music for Hope”, Bocelli’s concert was poignantly performed without an audience and instead streamed globally via Bocelli’s YouTube channel, in light of social distancing measures in place across the globe to stem the spread of coronavirus.

 

Celebrities and musicians have come together in isolation to create songs

In a video created by Gal Gadot, celebrities including Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell, and Kristen Wigg were featured singing John Lennon’s “Imagine”. Matthew McConaughey encouraged the world to make “turn a red light into a green light and just keep livin’,” and Judi Dench shared a message that we should all “just keep laughing.”

 

Amazon aims to hire 100,000 workers

According to a recent report, Amazon announced that it will hire 100,000 people across the U.S. to fulfill the influx of delivery orders. As more people are asked to shelter in place and practice social distancing, this increase in jobs will help people receive the goods they need.

Stores designate certain hours for at-risk shoppers

Several major retail stores including Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, and Stop & Shop and more, have dedicated special opening hours for shoppers who are elderly and most at risk for contracting the virus. To make food safely available to seniors, many companies have ramped up efforts to thoroughly disinfect their stores and provide specific shopping times that will limit the chance of exposure for high-risk citizens. That way, people like the elderly and immune-compromised are less likely to face massive crowds.

 

Chinese medical staff bring supplies to help Italy

Medical experts from China landed in Rome with a supply of masks, respirators, and other supplies to help fight COVID-19. The flight was organised by the Chinese Red Cross and brought around 30 tons of equipment to Italy. Besides China, where new cases now seem to be declining, Italy is the worst-hit country in the world.

Quarantined residents sing from their balconies

Amid a lockdown, Italians across the country took to their balconies to sing together, closing the distance between them with music. Communal singing also brought people together in Lebanon and Israel. Over in Spain, people in one apartment complex even joined together for a group fitness class at a distance, squatting and doing jumping jacks from their balconies.

 

Health care workers get a round of applause

In another display of solidarity from-balconies, Spanish people emerged at 10 p.m. one evening to give a roaring applause to the heroic work of health care workers during COVID-19. The same also happened in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and the Netherlands.